We I had plans for a productive day today.... install 1 or 2 of the new external nest boxes I built, try and get the bottom of one door of my one turkey pen unfrozen from the block of ice on the ground, put down some fresh straw in a couple wet spots in the turkey pens, move the Beltsville turkey girls in with their new man Fast Eddie and continue cleaning the garage.

Well things did not go as planned....I slipped a bit as I was trying to get some straw out from under a tarp covered in snow and ice, the bad ankle did not like that.... Started cutting a hole in the wall of my Cuckoo Malines breeding pen to install new nest box... reciprocating saw dies... decide to try and finish cutting hole with hand saw... not working well.... ice pellets start to fall.... give up on nest box.... decide to give birds some BOSS as treats and spread straw around... ayam cemani pullet escapes out of grow pen ..... go get the net, luckily she did not go far, scoop her up and put her back.... starts to SNOW!!!!.... screw it.... done for the day outside... headed inside for a coffee. Tomorrow is another day...suppose to be 10 degrees tomorrow.... I will believe it when it comes.... 40% chance of 10 mm of rain... we definitely don't need rain on top of all the snow and ice.

Good to hear ross, I think they should give out scooters to everybody at these large shows anyway. :)
So I think I am heading to Vancouver tomorrow, not sure how I managed to get in to middle of March break, I am usually supper careful to avoid large hordes of small children, and the combo of March break and grounding of 737s , not looking forward to it.

I'm hoping @Happy will be back soon too. And JimW. And Baronrenfrew. And WWW. And Brebis. And Flat Rock Farm. And Bayvistafarm. And WaupoosCowgirl. And theGawd. And thejonesboy. And ... and ... and... Seems that a lot of people are taking a break from PTO this winter.

Not really taking a break from PTO: I haven't been posting much but I read everything, every day
This winter has been hard on me, personally, with some health issues. Except for necessities like work, chores and essential shopping, I've been hibernating in my hermitage
My birds, on the other hand, have thus far come through the ups and downs of this winter with flying colours. I lost a China gander a little while ago right after a freak thunderstorm. My fault; there was a patch of ice in their coop from water spillage, and I didn't get hay down on it fast enough. Gander stood on the (dry) ice with wet feet and stuck to the ice. The temperature dropped drastically and when I found him, both feet were frozen solid, so I sent him on his way.
Other than that, no one has died so far and only one injury so far --a young cockerel that got himself wedged under some lumber in the barn and is going to lose toes on one foot and the entire foot on the other side. He's still alive for the moment, but he's in the hospital cage being fattened for slaughter. I tried giving him some company, but he has no idea that he's injured/defective, and tries to hump any bird I put in with him.
The "mamas" and their "babies" from late Fall/early winter are still in my basement. Along with a tiny rooster that was having a lot of trouble with the cold pretty early on. He's headed for the freezer, too, when I get around to it Mamas have been done with the kids for several weeks, and laying eggs. I've been unable, with the unpredictability of the weather, to risk moving them outside. One of the mamas has gone clucky again despite me taking away the eggs daily and is quite ferocious about it. I'm going to let her hatch another clutch in the hopes that spring will be here very soon because, clearly, I have a chicken math problem. I still have TWELVE Embden goslings from December/January in my KITCHEN, for the same reason I have growouts in my basement. They keep outgrowing their cages and tubs and are now in FOUR, taking up a good 1/3 of my kitchen, and blanketing the entire house in a thick layer of greasy dust every day. I know that I've said before, multiple times, that I'd never do birds in the house all winter ever again, especially waterfowl, so I won't say it again because I probably don't mean it
The one Embden goose is STILL laying eggs. Four months now. She has officially outlaid any China goose, ever. She was already a great layer, and laid two clutches per year since I got her, but she's outdone herself. Many were frozen before I collected, and quite a few more were stolen by Penny dog, and I've eaten quite a few in a futile effort to prevent myself from incubating any more (I caved and set a couple more eggs, due later this month). A rough count that doesn't include any that the dog ate that I didn't catch her with, tells me she has laid more than 60 eggs since November when she started. Every single one I've put in the incubator has been fertile. I've been somewhat behaving myself and only set a total of 20. One egg that was cracked was an early quitter (expected); Three goslings died at pip due to drowning/malposition (too swollen to turn); One gosling was culled at two weeks for failure to thrive. Three eggs are still cooking in the incubator, but I'm positive I'm going to lose one of those as it has a 'stuck' spot. Still a better hatch and survival rate than that goose has ever managed in the three years I've owned her. If I leave her to do all the work, she usually manages to hatch 3-5 of each clutch, but then somehow gets all the goslings killed off one by one. Hopefully this year is the year I can actually eat some heavy goose, unlike the light Chinas which are the Leghorns of geese in more ways than one. That said, twelve embden goslings, indoors in winter, is twelve too many. I'm looking back on the times I brooded 30 chicks in the house, with great fondness
My Jersey Giant breeding is still in the crapper. I am still looking for a new cockbird or three, and have been unable to travel far to get one. I've looked at half a dozen or more, within two hours drive of me, and they're all Performance hatchery. Those are a hard NO. Absolutely dreadful. You have no idea. A few years ago I ordered some of their black Giants thinking to breed them 'up', but I scrapped that idea once I saw how they were maturing. I honestly thought they'd given me Australorps insead of Giants, and not even half decent ones of THAT breed...white skin, light brown eyes, ratty plumage, skinny tails sticking straight up, and half the size they should be! I thought I had gotten a bad or mislabeled batch, but seeing other people's hatchery "Giants", they ALL look like that. Truly awful. I did save one JG hen from my original batch as a pet, and out of curiousity I once did a test cross with my own line. I wouldn't try it again. I could probably get better results by outcrossing with spent production layers straight out of the battery.
The one person close to me who had good stock lost ALL her blacks to a mink, and another fairly nearby has gotten out of breeding birds and gone back to dogs. That means the nearest quality birds to me are Peterborough (almost three hours away and he rarely has any extra for sale) and Cookstown, four hours away, and I just cannot afford that trip/travel that far right now. My handful of hens aren't getting any younger, so I'm hoping to stumble across some good stock soon. If not, a shift in focus may be in order.
Had a bit of a scare with Pennydog last week. I was petting her and noticed the loose skin on one side of her face felt heavy, swollen and fluidic for lack of a better word. Poking around, she had fluid around her face and neck, and two hard lumps at the side of and underneath her jaw. I looked in her mouth and saw a red, angry looking spot at the back of her cheek at the gumline and immediately thought either cancer or an abcess. I think we flew to the vet. Vet aspirated the lumps and took an Xray and found nothing but saliva. Salivary gland blockage. Treatment is always surgical removal of salivary glands on the affected side, estimated cost over $2000. I told them we'd be back on payday to get that done, and he was concerned that if we waited that long, that the swelling would choke her. I didn't really have a choice, and he decided to try a course of antibiotics, steroids, NSAID and antihistamine. Well, hallelujah, it's working, and her swelling is 99% gone. The vet is shocked too. I think Penny must have chewed something that irritated the gland opening, and now it's healing, allowing spit to drain again. Knowing Penny, it was probably goose egg shells that were the the culprit She also kills rats, and harrasses predators mercilessly, so it's hard to stay mad at her for raiding eggs. If surgery had ended up being necessary, I would have gladly forked out, but I'm even happier that it's not!!!
But anyway, I've nattered on long enough! This winter has been exhausting, c'mon, Spring, you can dooo eeeet!!!

Hijacking the topic for a moment:
Submit your pic of the month APRIL (!) pictures to the well known location with a caption.Photo Contest Submission
Submit by Sunday afternoon. I plan on posting that on Sunday evening, but work is ramping up and has the potential to eat my weekend... If it does, I'll be a bit later.

I really need to show someone how to do the picture of the month posting who can help out when I am swamped ... Any volunteers?